Electronic mail (Email) is fast becoming as integral a part of life as the telephone. Like telephone access, email access is available to many in the home as well as in the workplace. Additionally, public places, such as libraries and coffee houses, now provide email access. One appeal of electronic mail is that it provides a capability to keep in touch with long distance friends and relatives without incurring long-distance charges. Another advantage is that electronic mail provides an interface mechanism for collecting information from Internet services.
However, conventional email systems require the user to own or access a computer with Internet access. Not everyone owns a computer or wants to leave their home merely to read or send electronic mail. Additionally, not every one has access to the Internet or wants to pay a monthly fee for such access.
Another requirement of many conventional email systems is that one access an email account via the telephone network, thus tying up a phone line. One can normally install a second phone line or acquire an alternative Internet access mechanism, such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) or cable. However, these solutions are often expensive.
Certain conventional systems (e.g., the Landel Telecom MailBug™ system) implement an email device that plugs into a household phone jack in serial with a telephone. A user of such a conventional system, therefore, does not need a personal computer to access email.
Although a user of conventional systems plugs the device into a household phone jack, email reading and manipulation is performed “offline.” In other words, using such a conventional system does not tie up a phone line for longer than the time required to download or upload email from a mail server. Thus additional phone lines or alternate Internet access mechanisms are not necessary for the system user to access email.
Conventional systems, however, have some shortcomings. First of all, the display provided in such conventional systems is unnecessarily cluttered. Additionally, in order to perform certain functions using such conventional systems, a user is required to execute unnecessary steps.
The following patents discuss various aspects of telephony useful for background information and are incorporated herein by reference: Telephone Set, U.S. Pat. No. D410,005; Telephone Set, U.S. Pat. No. D405,447; Method And Structure For Detecting A Customer Premises Equipment Alerting Signal, U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,212; Caller Id Telephone With Signal Attenuation, U.S. Pat. No. 5,836,009; Telephone Set, U.S. Pat. No. D397,112; Text Transmission Using DTMF Signalling, U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,417; Caller Id And Call Waiting For Multiple CPEs On A Single Telephone Line, U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,924; and Caller Id And Call Waiting For Multiple CPEs On A Single Telephone Line, U.S. Pat. No. 5,574,777.
What is needed is a method and system for providing personal computer-free email access that avoids the disadvantages of conventional systems, while offering additional advantages.